Skin Cancer Surgery Brisbane & Gold Coast

What is involved in skin cancer surgery?

Skin lesions can be removed in an office setting, however, it is best performed in a hospital operating theatre setting. This allows for a high level of sterility and availability of operating room grade surgical equipment. Together, this will achieve the best results for you. 

Small excision surgery

Small lesions can be excised by superficial excision and primary closure. This may be done with dissolvable or non-dissolvable sutures depending on the nature and location of the lesion. It is important that adequate margins are taken to prevent local recurrence.

Larger excision surgery

When the lesion is too large, the amount of tissue that is required to be removed may be difficult to allow direct primary closure. In these instances, Dr Terence Chua employs advanced reconstructive techniques using “local flaps” and grafts that allow total eradication of the cancer and reconstruction of the defect, leaving minimal cosmetic or functional deficit. A local flap is when tissue from the same area is rearranged and a graft is when a thin slice of skin is taken from another part of the body to reconstruct the tissue defect.

Melanoma surgery

In patients with melanoma, wide local excision to incorporate the required margins based on the thickness of the melanoma may require reconstruction after excision. Depending on the tumour histopathology, sentinel node biopsy may be performed in conjunction to allow for loco-regional disease staging.